


what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

by Eyesofdoe



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, fluff?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 09:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20561696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eyesofdoe/pseuds/Eyesofdoe
Summary: When Richie leaves in the middle of the night, he thinks he’s going home. He’s on a straight shot back to Chicago, but he finds himself driving in circles.





	what doesn't kill me makes me want you more

When Richie leaves in the middle of the night, he thinks he’s going home. He’s on a straight shot back to Chicago, but he finds himself driving in circles. He can’t remember the roads, can’t remember how to get on the highway, and there’s a part of him that thinks, for once, this forgetting is intentional. He can’t remember driving in Derry, where he surely got his license, but he just...can’t. 

It’s killing him, because this time no one is awake to stop him, but he can’t leave. He can’t leave when his friends are in trouble, even though they haven’t spoken in over a decade, and he can’t leave when Eddie’s here.

Eddie’s here, and Richie can’t believe he ever forgot about Eddie. That’s really the worst part of this whole thing, that he’s been fucking around with all kinds of people, suffering through these failed relationships, because he had this foggy idea in his mind that somewhere, sometime, he met his soulmate. A soulmate he couldn’t even picture. Seeing Eddie again, a wedding ring on his finger, that was soul-crushing. And even when he’s home to fight this clown that almost killed him when he was a kid, he’s somehow more hurt by that wedding ring.

On an impulse, he drives out to the Barrens. And he knows he shouldn’t, not when it’s dark and he’s anxious and there’s something out to kill them all, but he feels this pull. Something different than Pennywise, something light instead of dark, and he finds himself hopping down into the clubhouse for the second time that day. 

He knows he isn’t alone. As soon as his feet hit the dirt floor, he knows there’s someone else there. There’s a sound of steady breathing, and maybe the quietest rustling of fabric he’s ever heard.

He turns his flashlight on, glad he had the foresight to at least get it out of the car, and he prepares himself to see what’s probably going to kill him.

Instead, he sees Eddie Kaspbrak.

Eddie Kaspbrak, all 5’9” of him stretched out in that hammock like when they were kids, and he looks as terrified as Richie feels.

“You could’ve announced yourself, asshole,” Eddie says, all abrasion, and that’s something that certainly hasn’t changed over time.

“Richie Tozier in the building,” He says, imitating the voice he’s heard so many times in so many different clubs and event halls, “A special one night only performance.”

“I don’t want to hear any of your shitty jokes right now. Why are you even here?”

“Why are  _ you  _ here?”

“I asked first.”

Just like when they were kids.

“I was...going to leave.” Richie says, “But then-”

“You couldn’t figure out how?” Eddie guesses.

“Right. You too?”

“I was going eighty on these backroads, and I just kept ending up out here. Eventually I gave in.”

“This is the only place I’ve felt safe since we’ve been back in Derry,” Richie says.

“I can’t feel safe anywhere,” Eddie says, like it’s an admission of some kind, “Even now, I feel on edge. Like something fucking terrible is about to happen.”

“You got room for one more?” Richie asks, because he’d intended to lie in it anyway, once he got down here. He’s not trying to weasel in next to his childhood best friend, no sir, just tired of standing up.

“We could barely both fit in here when we were younger, much less now.” Eddie says, but he seems to move over just a little. Enough for Richie to take it as a permission.

He climbs in, awkwardly, too tall for this now. But he gets in, the hammock twisting and swinging until they finally stabilize moments later. They’re side by side now, not head to foot like back then. Richie wonders if this is what it’s like to sleep next to him.

“You know I missed you,” Richie says, “Right?”

“You can’t miss someone you don’t remember.” Eddie says.

Richie’s heart aches, because he knows you can. He knows that even if he couldn’t remember Eddie, specifically, he had this hole in his heart that no one could fill. He knew, somewhere deep down, that he’d met that person. And he’d exhausted every resource trying to figure out who it was.

“Didn’t you ever feel like something was missing?”

“Obviously, yeah. I couldn’t remember half my life. My whole childhood was missing,” Eddie says, his eyes closed, “I watched one of your shitty stand-up specials, though, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew you. It was fucking bizarre, seeing a face and being so convinced I’d seen it before, but not knowing when or how or why. I figured I’d seen you in a magazine or something.”

“Who the fuck reads magazines anymore?” Richie snorts, “Don’t you have an iPhone?”

“Fuck you, don’t you ever go to the dentist?”

Richie laughs, and he feels exhausted and invigorated all at once. This is the only thing he missed about Derry, now that he remembers enough  _ to  _ miss Derry, and it makes him feel terrible and wonderful all at the same time.

“So...how’s married life?” Richie asks, because he sucks at transitions, and he wants to know. He wants to know if Eddie’s happy, if this is what he wanted, or if this is just another Eddie thing, where he’s trying to make himself think he’s normal.

“I don’t even want to talk about it,” Eddie says, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I think I always knew it wasn’t right, but being back here has really made me realize how wrong it is.”

“Is that because it’s her, or because marriage isn’t for you, or…?”

“There’s nothing wrong with her, really. I just rushed into it, I think, because it felt like what I should do. It was the next step in the life plan, and I thought that once we were married it would feel right. But it never did. Still doesn’t.”

“You know, I can’t seem to find anyone that feels right.” Richie laughs humorlessly, “I date around, you know, but no one fits.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything to that, just nods his head silently, like he agrees.

Their hands are touching. Richie isn’t sure if it’s on purpose, but Eddie’s hand brushes his and it doesn’t move. He’s an adult, and the prospect of holding hands shouldn’t make him so excited, but it does. He moves his hand a little, just so it’s palm up, and they’re not holding hands but Eddie’s is laying on top of his, like a still high five.

Richie’s heart is pounding and he’s considering his next words carefully, fueled only by the fact that they might die in the next few days and this is something he desperately needs off his chest. Before it’s maybe too late.

“Eddie?”

“Yeah, Rich?” Eddie asks, and he softens even more at the nickname, something no one’s called him in a long time. Richie, short for Richard, no one really thinks to make it shorter.

“This feels right,” Richie says in a terrified whisper, waiting for Eddie to yank his hand away, to roll out of the hammock and leave Richie miserable and wanting.

“It feels...fucking terrifying,” Eddie breathes, his voice a barely there sound, “Because I don’t know if I  _ want  _ it to feel so right.”

Richie can’t really process the words. It’s basically exactly what he wanted to hear, but he can’t seem to sort through it, can’t seem to make sense of it. He spent all of adolescence in love with Eddie, poking and prodding him to see his reactions and make him laugh, and here they are, a million years later, lying side by side like not a second has passed. And Eddie is making it sound like he’s felt the same, all this time.

“I’ve had a lot of hangups about my sexuality over the years,” Richie starts, like he has any business coaching Eddie through a fucking gay crisis when he’s been having one for his entire life, “And it’s really-”

Eddie kisses him, and it’s like everything washes away. He wants to get lost in it, but he’s got Pennywise in the back of his mind, terrified a little that this is some ploy and in a minute Eddie’s mouth will grow ten sizes to show rows and rows of awful teeth. He manages to disregard that, after a moment of paralyzing fear.

It’s almost uncomfortable, with the way Richie has to crane his neck to meet Eddie’s lips, but he’s too swept up in it to move. He imagined this so many times when they were younger, and they’re all flashing through his head like a slideshow as memories come rushing back.

Eddie smiling at some dumb joke he made after everyone else told him to shut up, muttering it under his breath but obviously not meaning it.

Eddie letting him into his room through the window after a fight with his mom got out of hand, breathing fast and shallow as Richie held him through it, wishing he could take him away somewhere safe.

Eddie giving him a look, once, that made him wonder if they were the same. If Eddie returned his feelings. Just big brown eyes under thick lashes, but enough to have Richie’s head spinning for weeks.

Eddie kissing him at the quarry right before he left for college, and they were eighteen and reckless, and Eddie’s lips were softer then, but it felt the same, felt like pure happiness, adrenaline, all the good things in the world. Calling him Trashmouth afterward, all teasing and flirty, like he  _ wanted  _ Richie that way,

And they’re kissing now, and Richie’s head is swimming, all these memories of him and Eddie rushing back like they didn’t go years and years without seeing, without  _ remembering  _ each other at all. 

“We’ve kissed before,” Eddie whispers against his lips, “A long time ago.”

Richie just kisses him again, trying to make sure this is real. He’s slow about it, romantic, trying to make sure Eddie knows he doesn’t want anything else. And he doesn’t, not now. He just wants to remember everything, anything about how they went from bickering to kissing. Nothing else comes. But it’s still enough, knowing that it was never one-sided, that it was never just Richie being a freak, being disgusting, trying to hide a dirty secret. Eddie knew all along.

They fall asleep there somehow, even as the hammock twists and creaks. And Richie is satisfied when they wake up just before dawn, with barely enough time to sneak back to the house, to know what it’s like to sleep next to Eddie Kaspbrak, and to know that if they had been anywhere else, they would’ve been something more.

**Author's Note:**

> Just my take on a hammock scene, which I'm sure there will be many of after Chapter Two. Let me know if my tags aren't up to snuff, I wasn't sure what else to throw this under.  
I saw chapter two today and it simultaneously broke my heart and made me incredibly happy, so i had to throw this out there.  
I'm on tumblr @trashtoziermouth


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